I5T 



r 



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ADDRESS 







Hon. Benjamin Harris Brewster. LL.D., 




^jfiing of llje Cornifr %\i\\t 



NEW PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 



PHILADELPHIA, 



July 4, 1874. 



ADDRESS 



Hon. Benjamin Harris Brewster. LL.D., 



^4gi«{) 0f ifj^ mm^t %imt 



NEW PUBEIC BUIEDINGS, 



PHILADELPHIA, 



July 4, 1874. 



HENRY B. ASHM^AI), PRINTER, 

llOi ANU 1104 SANSOM STKEIiT, PHILADELPHIA. 



■%(i^ 



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OFFICE OF THE 
COMMISSIONERS FOR I'HE ERECTION OF THE I'UliLlC BU1LDINC;S. 

Philadelphia, July 7, 1874. 
Hon. Benjamin Harris Brewster. 
My Dear Sir: 

It affords me great pleasure, on behalf of the Commissioners, to request for 
publication a copy of the admirable Address delivered by you on the 4th inst., at 
the laying of the Corner Stone. The Commissioners feel under obligation to you 
for the research and labor expended in the preparation of the Address, which pro- 
duced a marked impression on all who were so favored as to hear it, and cannot fail 
to go far towards satisfying the public mind of the necessity, expediency and wisdom 
of this great undertaking as it is now in process of accomplishment. The tone of 
thorough and heartfelt loyalty to your native city, and the full appreciation of its 
advantages and greatness which pervaded the whole Address, must have a most use- 
ful and salutary influence. 

Trusting that an early and favorable response may be accorded to the above 

request, 

I remain, very truly and respectfully yours, 

Samuel C. Perkins, 

Presidejit of the Commissioners. 



Philadelphia, 13th July, 1S74. 
To Samuel C. Perkins, Esq., 

President of the Commissioners 

for the Erection of the Public Buildings. 

Dear Sir: 

I have been absent from town, or you should have had an earlier answer to 
your polite note of July 7th. I thank you and the Commissioners most cordially 
for the kind manner in which they make the request of me, and with this I send to 
you for publication the Address as asked for. 

I am, with great respect, your friend, 

Benjamin Harris Brewster. 



At the conclusion of the Masonic Ceremonies with which the 
Corner Stone was laid^ 

Mr. Brewster delivered the following Address. 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen : These solemn ceremonies having 
been performed, it is now my duty to say some few words, explaining 
the history and purpose of this great public work. One hundred and 
eighty years ago, when this city and this province were a wilderness, 
William Penn, then the proprietor, dedicated this very spot of ground as 
the suitable site for the public buildings of his projected city. That 
such was his act, and such his purpose, has been judicially established 
as a legal and historic fact ; and now we perform the conditions of the 
grant, and honestly apply the gift to the object of the trust, obeying the 
intentions of our provident benefactor. 

For many years this city has been unprovided with buildings suitable 
for the convenient performance of the usual and necessary public business. 

Before the consolidation of the city, as created by Penn, we were 
surrounded with outlying incorporated municipalities. Then the busi- 
ness of each and all was transacted with reasonable convenience in the 
old municipal buildings, and in the halls that had been erected in the dis- 
tricts and townships of the county, but even then the accommodations 
were wanting for the growing necessities of our courts. Year after 
year the officers of the county (then a separate and distinct corpora- 
tion with its own organization and officials), were driven to adopt expe- 
dients to supply the courts with convenient apartments. At one time 
the Supreme Court was held in the Hall of Independence, at another 
time the Supreme Court, Nisi Prius, was placed in the chapter room of 
the old, abandoned iMasonic Hall, Chestnut Street, above Seventh. 
During those days the necessities for such buildings for general public 
uses were few. Since then new and great departments have grown out 
of what were subordinate clerkships of public employment. 

Day by day the want of proper apartments pressed upon the courts 
and interfered with the administration of justice. Day by day the same 
want crowded the officials of the city and the people who had business 
with them. There was hardly a county of any importance in the State 
that had not buildings larger in proportion to their wants, by a hundred 
fold, than our crowded and narrow rooms. Different plans had been 
projected and suggested for supplying this want. From many causes 
they all failed. Sometimes the fear of the cost hindered the prosecution 
of the purpose. Then the selection of the locality was in the way, and 



then the choice of the means by which it was to be done. At last the 
Legislature of the Commonwealth hnally resolved, and by an act, ap- 
proved 5th of August, 1870, provided "for the erection of all of the 
public buildings required to accommodate the courts, and for all muni- 
cipal purposes in the city of Philadelphia." That act created the Com- 
mission now in charge of this duty, and gave the people of the city the 
privilege of indicating, by popular vote, whether the buildings should be 
at Washington Square or at Penn Square, where we now are, and where 
we have this day witnessed the laying of the corner stone of one of the 
most majestic and useful structures that adorn, or have adorned, any city 
of the world. May ir last for ever ! 

After the passage of this act a heated and almost angry opposition was 
excited ; a series of litigations ensued ; applications were made to the 
Legislature ; resistance was attempted in the City Councils, and the ele- 
ments of the most vehement partisan prejudices were used to frustrate the 
law or secure its repeal. Then some of us regretted this opposition. 
Some thought it too personal, too violent. But since it h s passed away 
all are reconciled, and believe that it was for the best. Such an event, 
conflicting as it did, with so many convictions and interests, must excite 
opposition, and those who resisted had a right to be heard, and fully heard, 
before all of the tribunals, popular, legislative, and judicial. These con- 
tentions delayed the action of the commission for any practical result for 
full a year. After that, all those obstructions being removed, it proceeded 
to act as the law commanded, as the people had directed, and as the courts 
had adjudged. What we now do is the product of that action. On the 
7th of January, 1871, the work was first begun, by the removal of the 
iron railings which enclosed the four squares or plots of ground, into 
which the city had converted the whole, in the year 1828, for the pur- 
pose of running Market and Broad Streets through the original plot. 
Before that the place had been left as it was originally set apart — one 
entire square — and in that state had been occupied, at different times, 
and in different parts of it, by a Friends' meeting-house, and by the first 
water-works established and used for conveying Schuylkill water to the 
old city. I remember the small, neat building that graced the centre. 
I think it was designed by Latrobe, the famous architect, who adorned 
our city with some of its most beautiful structures, and who left the 
Capitol buildings at Washington as the highest achievement of his 
genius. The very columns that embellished its front now support the 
pediment of the Unitarian Church, at the corner of Tenth and Locust 
Streets. The bisection of this plot, by these highways, was for the 
purpose of temporary public convenience, and to accommodate the rail- 



7 

ways that were then for the first time introduced, and whose direct 
access to the city proper was considered to be of great importance to its 
trade and languishing commerce. With the growth of population and 
the changes of events that has passed away, indeed the necessity now is 
to remove the railways from the thickly-peopled parts, where they are a 
dangerous obstruction to trade and the ordinary pursuits of the thousands 
who throng their crowded ways. It was at most but a temporary occu- 
pation and license, revocable at will, if it were not an unauthorized and 
illegal intrusion. 

On the loth of August, 1871, the ground was broken by John Rice, 
Esq., then president of the Board of Commissioners, and the first stone 
of the foundation was laid at 2 o'clock, p. M., on the 12th day of August, 
A. D. 1872. The closing of the streets and p'acing the building in the 
centre of the plot was the subject of much discussion in the Commission 
itself. By some it was wished that the streets should remain open, and the 
four plots should each contain a structure ; but the final resolution of the 
Commission was, and is, to place it and keep it where it was intended 
by Penn that it should be put — in the centre of the whole ten acres. 
And with this conclusion, I believe, most men now concur. It is the 
only place where a building of suitable dignity can stand to display its 
parts in all the beauty of their architectural effect. It will adorn, and 
not blemish, the highways at whose intersection it is placed, and it will 
give an air of majesty and grandeur to these long and broad avenues. 
It is not put in a corner, hidden from view, but it stands out in bold and 
high relief, commanding admiration. It is placed, as other and similar 
great structures are, as the centre of human concourse from which all 
things radiate and to which all things converge. It is surrounded by a 
grand avenue 135 feet wide, on the southern and eastern and western 
fronts, and 205 feet wide on the northern front. Neither the view nor 
wav is hindered by it. Ihe view is improved, the effect being magni- 
fied — and the way is widened into open spaces of unusual dimensions, 
but of proportions that harmonize with the magnitude of the building, 
and answer the convenience of the multitude that will be drawn here to 
transact public and private affairs. Had the buildings been divided and 
placed on the four squares, the cost would have been increased and their 
beauty lost, while the inconvenience to the public would have been 
great, and the expense of maintaining them with light and heat and 
water, and the other necessaries, would have been largely multiplied. 
The highways would have been smaller and narrower and less conve- 
nient. In this, as in all that has been done, these Commissioners have 
wisely followed, not forced, the general public judgment. Mr. John 



McArthur, Jr., of this city, who had before this been engaged in pre- 
paring all the previous plans, which had been the subject of public con- 
sideration for many years, was chosen the architect, and his plan adopted. 
That has been submitted to the public, and it, too, has been justly 
applauded and approved, I shall not here undertake to describe it by a 
multitude of words, which can only degenerate into mere rhetorical 
expletives, and would therefore be unsuitable as well as vulgar. This 
much, however, I must speak. It is suited for its purpose, it is of suffi- 
cient size to answer future wants. It is admirable in its ornaments, while 
the whole effect is one of massive dignity, worthy of us and our posterity. 

I will here give the dimensions, and a few of the details of this re- 
markable structure. It is 470 feet from east to west, and 486^ feet 
from north to south, covering an area, exclusive of the court-yard, of 
nearly four and a half acres. It is probably larger than any single 
building on this continent. The superstructure consists of a basement 
story, 18 feet in height, a principal story, of 36 feet, and an upper story, 
of 31 feet, surmounted by another of 15 feet. The small rooms open- 
ing upon the court-yard are each sub-divided in height into two stories, 
for the purpose of making useful all the space. The several stories 
will be approached by four large elevators, placed at the intersections of 
the leading corridors, to make easy the intercourse of citizens with 
courts, public offices, and departments of city government. In addition 
to these means of access there will be a grand staircase in each of the 
four corners of the building, and one in each of the ce.ntre pavilions on 
the north, south, west and east fronts. The entire structure will con- 
tain five hundred and twenty rooms, of suitable dimensions, and fitted 
with every possible convenience, including heat, light, and ventilation, 
and the whole is to be absolutely fire-proof and indestructible. All of 
the departments now existing will be abundantly supplied, and a vast 
amount of surplus room will be left for judicial and other city archives, 
as well as afford room for all of our growing wants. This is as it ought 
to be. We provide for the present urgent wants, and protect the people 
hereafter from those inconveniences under which we now sufl^er, and which 
expose our records to ruin and decay, while they seriously obstruct and 
hurt all branches of business and public duty. It is computed that the 
entire cost of this work will be near ten millions of dollars, and that it 
will be completed in ten years from the day when the first spadeful of 
earth was removed. 

To judge of its massive size, I will give you an account of what 
materials have been consumed in constructing the foundation and the 
parts of the superstructure you now see before you : 74,000 cubic feet 



of cement concrete, 636,400 cubic feet of foundation stone, 8,000,000 
bricks, 70,000 cubic feet of dressed granite, and 366 tons of iron, includ- 
ing floor beams. 

The excavation for the cellars and foundations required the removal 
of 141,500 cubic yards of earth. A large quantity of the marble for 
the superstructure has been prepared, and the corner stone is the first 
block that has yet been set in the building. Here I will end my details. 
To be more minute would be tedious and prolix ; but this much should 
be given to properly advise the public. 

Let me state with accuracy to what purposes the building will be 
devoted, and who will occupy it the day it is ready for public use, that 
you may see and know what are our wants. 

The Mayor will require for the use of his office and of the police at 
least twelve commodious rooms. 



The City Council Chambers and their officers will need 

The City Treasurer, .... 

The City Controller, .... 

Law Department, .... 

Water Department, .... 

Highways, Bridges and Sewers, . 

Survey Department, .... 

Markets and City Property, 

Building Inspectors, .... 

Boiler Inspectors, .... 

Health Office, 

Fire Department, .... 

Receiver of Taxes, .... 

Police and Fire-alarm Telegraph, 

Guardians of the Poor, 

Port Wardens, ..... 

City Commissioners, .... 

Coroner, ...... 

Girard Estates, ..... 

Board of Education, .... 

Gas Office, ...... 

Park Commissioners, .... 

Board of Revision, .... 

Collector of Delinquent Taxes, . 

Courts, 13 rooms, with accommodations for the Prothonotaries 

and Clerks, for the Law Library, witness and jury rooms, and 

District Attorney. 
Recorder of Deeds, ......••• 

Register of Wills, ......••• 

Sheriff, 



15 
3 
5 
9 
7 
4 
4 



At this time the city rents apartments for the Recorder ot Deeds, in 



lO 

the Philadelphia National Bank ; for the City Controller and Treasurer, 
in the Girard Bank ; the Law Buildings on Fifth Street, for the Law 
Department ; of the American Philosophical Society, for the Water 
Department ; and for the Survey Department, in No. 224 South Fifth 
Street ; in No. 723 Arch Street, for the Tax Office and Board of 
Revision ; and the southwest corner of Fifth and Walnut Streets for the 
Department of Markets and City Property \ and for these insecure and 
unsuited places it pays a rent of i{F4 1,300. These I mention that it 
may be known and seen how scattered, costly and unfit are our present 
accommodations for public purposes. 

It will now be proper for me to speak a iev^ words of the extent of 
our City of Homes, as it has been called, — of its large accommodations for 
its people, — of its great public improvements for public necessities and 
private comfort. This I will do in a cursory way, as the occasion and 
the time will not admit of precision and detail ; but it should be done, to 
show how fit this structure in all its magnitude of dimensions is for the 
community it is intended to supply, and how it harmonizes in all things 
with that which we have around us and about us in daily use, and how 
essential it is to construct it as it is designed, if we are to have a provi- 
dent regard for the manifest wants of the future. I have seen and lived 
in almost all of the capitals of Europe, and I have read of all of the great 
cities of the world ; but I have never seen or read of such a city as this is. 
There is no town in the world, of its dimensions or population, and there 
never has been one, that possesses such accommodations for its people. 
Artisans, and even laborers live with us as they never lived before. 
Men whose daily earnings in other cities will hardly sustain life and pro- 
vide a shelter for themselves and their families, except in the most rude, 
coarse, scanty and crowded way, are here the occupants of single and com- 
fortable dwellings, and thousands of them the owners of their own houses. 
The efiectof this upon the mei^.tal and moral condition of the citizens 
is evident, even to transient visitors. We have no such class here as 
the poor workingman ; our city is filled with workmen, independent, 
prosperous freemen, who bring up families of boys with habits of thrift 
and industry, to go out into life prepared and resolved to earn homes, 
because they have enjoyed them in their happy childhood, and with good 
girls, who are certain of provision for life with a comfortable house for 
their families, because they are trained to keep those homes with tidiness 
and economy, and because they are raised with a race of men who honor 
and love their families, and find their only sense of content in the culti- 
vation of the domestic affections. This is true, every word of it true, 
of Philadelphia and its workmen. At the beginning of the year 1873, 



II 



we had 134,740 buildings of all kinds. Of these 124,302 were dwell- 
ing houses, occupied by families. They exceed the following cities by 
the following numbers : 



New York, by over 
Brooklyn, by over 
St. Louis, by over 
Baltimore, by over 
Chicago, by over 
Boston, by over . 
Cincinnati, by over 



60,000 
78,000 
84,000 
83,000 
79,000 
94,000 
99,000 



This city has a population of near 800,000, and they live in an area 
of 1 29 J square miles. It has looo miles of streets and roads opened for 
use, and over 500 miles of these are paved. It is lighted by near ten 
thousand gas lamps. The earth beneath conceals and is penetrated by 
134 miles of sewers, over 600 miles of gas mains and 546 miles of water 
pipes. We have over 212 miles of city railways, and near 1794 city 
railroad cars passing over these railroads daily, 3025 steam boilers, over 
400 public schools, with suitable buildings, and over 1600 school 
teachers, and over 80,000 pupils. We have over 34,000 bath-rooms, 
most of which are supplied with hot water, and for the use of the water, 
at low rates, our citizens pay more than a million of dollars annually. 
We have over 400 places of public worship, and accommodations in 
them for 300,000 persons. 

We have near 9000 manufactories, having a capital of $185,000,000, 
employing 145,000 hands, the annual product of whose labor is over 
$384,000,000, We exported in 1873, in value, over $34,000,000, and 
we imported in value over $26,000,000. The amount paid for duties 
in gold was near eight millions and a half. The real estate, as assessed 
for taxation, was over $518,000,000, and we collected near $9,000,000 
for taxes. Our funded debt, including the gas loan, in January, 1873, 
was $51,697,147 67, and our annual outlay in 1873, inclusive ot in- 
terest on our debt, was $7,726,123. We have parks and public squares, 
and Fairmount Park, which is one of them, contains 2991 acres, and 
is one of the largest parks in the world, and was enjoyed in 1873 ^Y 
near 3,000,000 of people. 

From this we can understand for whom we are now building, and why 
the outlay proposed is provident and necessary. We can also see in a 
partial way where our money has gone, but we can see with sufficient 
fullness how providently and judiciously most of it has been expended, 
when we behold this list of stupendous improvements, millions of which 
lie beneath the surface of the earth, and millions of which we drive 



11 

over and walk over, unheeding the cost of the conveniences and com- 
forts we are daily using in the paved, curbed, watered, drained and 
lighted highways, on which front, for over 2000 miles, 124,302 neat 
and comfortable homes. I said, we can see in a partial way where our 
money has gone, because near twelve millions of the debt was incurred 
for the expenses of the civil war. But even that we can see and value, 
when, as the fruit of it, we can behold around us not only our own 
comfortable and peaceful homes, but we feel by its outlay, made with 
generous prodigality in such a cause, that we have saved a country and 
a free home for ourselves and for others in this land, and in foreign 
lands ; and we feel that we have also shown, that a republic can " main- 
tain a perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, pro- 
vide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure 
the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity." 

Of all the cities in this nation, Philadelphia is pre-eminently Ameri- 
can. Philadelphia's characteristics and customs, the habits and pecu- 
liarities of the people, are essentially American. The vast body of its 
population is chiefly the product of its own people, who were here 
almost from the beginning. The descendants of the men who were 
here at its foundation, and were here at the outbreak of the Revolution, 
are the men who now compose the body of its citizens, who do its 
work, carry on its trades, make its ordinances, control its offices, own 
its property, and fill the stations of public usefulness and dignity. We 
are not governed by strangers, and have never been willing to submit 
to such rule. We have a manly local pride of citizenship; other sea- 
board cities are provincial, or filled with strangers from other parts of 
the nation and from other countries ; and the Western cities are, like 
New York, the homes of new men from old places. 

If a foreigner were to ask me, where will I find a real American, 
untouched in his character and nationality by the ever-drifting tide of 
emigration, domestic and foreign, and with no taint of provincial nar- 
rowness, I would say, go to Philadelphia, and there you will find just 
such men and women by the hundreds of thousands. There you will 
find a provident, steadfast race, the sons for over six generations of pro- 
vident, steadfast ancestors; real Americans, bone of their bone, flesh of 
their flesh. Earlv in our career we commanded the foreign and domes- 
tic commerce of the colonies, and till 1820 this city was the commer- 
cial metropolis of the country. For a time that ascendancy passed 
away, and New York, by her ijiternal improvements, acquired the trade 
we had lost. While we thus ruled, we ruled grandly, and we have 
never forgotten our dignity. The sentiment that then prevailed with 



13 

our people still prevails. Then they embellished our city with works 
of architecture, equalled nowhere in the Union in beauty and fit- 
ness. We then possessed nearly all of the public buildings and public 
works of the land, and they were objects of admiration. Strangers 
came from a distance to see them and enjoy them. The Fairmount 
Water Works, the old Bank of Pennsylvania, the old Bank of the 
United States (now the Girard Bank, both the works of Latrobe), the 
new Bank of the United States (now the Custom House), and the Ex- 
change and the Mint of the United States, and the Naval Asylum (the 
works of Strickland), the old Philadelphia Bank, and such like, were 
scattered over our city, then small in its dimensions and population. 
Even in the earlier days we were not unmindful of what was due to 
good taste in the erection of our public structures, as well as in our 
beautiful private mansions that then stood surrounded with groves of 
trees adorning the town and country homes of our cultivated and wealthy 
colonial gentry and merchants. Let any one but step into Christ's 
Church, even as it is now changed by the renovating hand of modern 
improvement, and he will there see the remains of a harmony, sim- 
plicity, and fitness of adornment that indicates a high standard of just 
taste. And there is also the State House, in Chestnut Street. Enter 
the great hall that leads to the Hall of Independence and to the tower, 
on which is built the steeple, and there will be seen a passage of modest 
dignity, and a broad, well-constructed stairway, showing that even in 
those days, over one hundred and twenty years ago, when it was built, 
surrounded with the forest trees, and out of town — in those simple days 
our ancestors had provided, as we provide, for the future and tor public 
purposes, with a liberal hand, regarding taste as well as utility. Let us 
not forget the Pennsylvania Hospital in Pine Street, with its spacious 
grounds and its lofty, stately main building, at this day an object of ad- 
miration for its size aiid its proportions, so suited for its purpose, and so 
simple in its quiet, harmonious beauty. 

All this we still have ; and, further, we have the Girard College, 
with other grand and elegant structures that are the work of our own 
days. I will not speak of them in detail ; time will not permit me to 
describe the rows of new residences that adorn our streets, or the costly 
and stately churches that are scattered in every quarter of the town. 
You have the great Masonic Temple and three beautiful churches that 
cluster round this very spot. I can remember well when but two 
steeples rose above our town ; now, as you gaze from the summits in 
the Park, the city lies before you with a number of lofty domes and sky- 
piercing spires. These are the work of private enterprise and bounty. 



14 

We must not omit to remember the great gift the city has this day be- 
stowed upon her people. To-day the Girard Avenue Bridge was de- 
hvered over to the authorities, and is now possessed by all of us. It is 
a work of wonderful merit, and is well worth the millions spent on it. 
It is an avenue worthy of any of the greatest cities of the world. It 
contributes to our convenience and prosperity, while it bears witness to 
our pride and liberality of feeling in all that concerns the common and 
public o-ood. In our growth we live up to the example of our ances- 
tors, and have resolved now that for our present necessities, and accord- 
ing to the abundance of our means, we will adorn our city as it was 
adorned oT old, with a structure that will fully answer its end, and com- 
mand the admiration of all men. 

Such is my love for and faith in this city, that I feel possessed with 
a conviction, which might even be called a superstition, that it will 
again be, as it once was, the real metropolis of the nation. The capital 
and the public offices of the Union will never return ; the foreign trade 
may cluster at New York as it does in Liverpool ; but Philadelphia will 
be again, as she first was, the real centre of finance, of commerce, and 
wealth. She is at the head of the mechanic arts and ot manufacturing, 
and she has ever led in refinement, in science, and in jurisprudence. 
The material supremacies which left her will return, and those graces 
and glories which she has ever had will never leave her. Here they made 
their home, where Penn, the greatest of all the founders of free common- 
wealths, demonstrated that liberty, the largest liberty, was compatible 
with obedience to law, and a colony, established to maintain the firmest of 
religious convictions by the strictest of sects, could protect all other beliefs. 

This wisdom he transmitted to' our people, and as a body they possess 
it to this hour as a spirit or living public soul, and it is that which has 
made us just what we are, and for which we are and have been con- 
spicuous in all of our public history. In the Revolution, when we had 
most to lose, we were first in action, and faithful to the end, enduring 
all things, hoping all things, believing all things for the love of that 
Christian liberty which was a part of our blessed faith. In those sad 
days, here came, as to a common centre, all of the wise and brave who 
guided and led in that contest. Here the Continental Congress sat, 
here the Declaration of Independence was written, executed and pro- 
claimed. After the Revolution, here George Washington presided over 
the deliberation of the Constitutional Convention ; and here, too, he 
administered to the end of his official life the Government he had helped 
to form for the country he had saved. How thickly the memories of 
these events, our great events of the past, press on me ! How the 



15 

names of the wise and good and mighty rise up- before me, and tempt 
me to enlarge upon the history of the grand things done, and of the men 
who did them. I mean those who belonged to us, who were Philadel- 
phians, but whose fame is so large that men remember them only as 
belonging to mankind. We have had Penn and Franklin and Ritten- 
house and Rush and Godfrey and Bartram, whose names posterity will 
not willingly let die. Penn and Franklin are names that never will be 
forgotten ; they will pass down through time linked with Solon and 
Lycurgus, Pythagoras and Archimedes and Socrates and Plato and 
Aristotle, the crowned monarchs of human thought. But I must here 
pause. I have well-nigh done all that was required of me. I must not 
wander off, tempted by these proud thoughts of our proud citizenship. 
I never approach a great building but with a sense of awe. Mechani- 
cally I lift my hat, as if I stood in the august presence of something 
grand and good. I can understand why men have imputed spiritual 
gifts to the masters of this the greatest of all arts. 

For in it all science and all art unite to produce sublime and almost 
supernatural results. Solomon, the wisest of men, thus illustrated the 
highest reaches of his superhuman genius, and the greatest achievement 
of the chosen people was the vast temple built by that monarch and 
dedicated to the service of Jehovah. Go where you will on the face of 
the earth, you will there find these grand works of nations now dead 
and perished from the memory of men. Those who made them had 
immortal souls ; but for this life they were mortal, and are no more re- 
membered of men ; and yet thus their history is recorded and remem- 
bered in monuments that were the works of their minds and hands — 
monuments that stand like great books written in the very rocks they 
are built upon. Where no such monuments are to be found the 
people had no mental or moral natures above the faculties of brutes. 
Wherever a nation had a conscience and a mind, there it recorded the 
evidence of its being in these the highest products of human thought, 
human knowledge, and human will. 

It has been well said that architecture rests on two ideas — the natural, 
or the idea of order ; the supernatural, or that of the infinite. In these 
various monuments of by-gone ages these thoughts are displayed accord- 
ing to the genius of the people. 

" In Greek art order directs and guides the natural and rational idea. 
The strong column elegantly grouped, bearing at its ease a light pedi- 
ment — the weak rests on the strong ; this is logical and human. Gothic 
art is supernatural — superhuman — it is born of the belief of the miracu- 
lous and poetic. The geometry of beauty bursts brilliantly forth in the 



i6 

type of the Gothic architecture in the Cathedral of Cologne. To whom 
belonged the science of numbers, this divine mathematics ? To no 
mortal man did it belong, but to the Church of God. Under the shadow 
of the Church in chapters and in monasteries — the secret was transmitted 
together with instructions in the mysteries of Christianity. The Church 
alone could accomplish these miracles of architecture. She could often 
summon a whole people to complete a monument. A hundred thousand 
men labored at once on that of Strasbourg, and such was their zeal that 
they did not suffer night to interrupt their work, but continued it by 
torchlight. Often, too, the Church would lavish centuries on the slow 
accomplishment of a perfect work." 

The original and brilliant historian and thinker, whose words I have 
just repeated, citing them as the evidence of an observer, philosopher, 
and critic, conveys to us, in his clever sentences, those truths which 
illustrate and account for some of the most marvellous products of this 
mighty art. He reminds us that when pious zeal inspires, it passes 
beyond the mere love of order and fitness, and soars into the very em- 
pyrean of the miraculous and poetic. What a grand thing is it thus to 
perpetuate such sublimities of thought and feeling in monuments as 
everlasting as the hills, and as spiritual in their influence on the human 
soul ! This is what we are doing. We are erecting a structure that will 
in ages to come speak for us as with "the tongues of men and angels." 
This work which we now do, as it were, in the morning hour of our being, 
will, probably, like the broken arch of London bridge fancied by Lord 
Macaulay, in some far off future day be all that remains to tell the story of 
our civilization, and to testify to the dignity and public spirit of our people. 

What we thus give we must give with free spirit, not grudgingly, for as 
we are of great and good beginnings, and have been an earnest and noble 
race of men, so should we make this our monument tell the world and 
posterity how provident we are ; how, scorning ugliness as we do vice, 
we resolve thus to speak to men as it were in words of marble, that 
in their order are logical and human, and in their form reach to the 
miraculous and poetic. 

We have done and are doing a great, great work, and it will inspire 
our posterity to live up to our standard, as we are inspired to live by the 
standard of our ancestors. They loved their town with a gentle fond- 
ness that is testified by every act of their useful and remarkable public 
lives, and they transmitted to us, their sons, the same soft sense of affec- 
tion. We, too, can say, as Franklin said when writing of his home — 
dear, dear Philadelphia. Do we not say it in enduring words with this day's 
work, and when we leave behind us this noble building to say it for us ? 



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